From Greg's Head

I was recently asked, how can Houston continue to attract top tech companies and talent to the city. Interesting question. I see two things that have to happen.

First, we need to continue the branding and awareness of the Houston tech community to those outside of the Houston and Texas regions.  I know it sounds old fashioned, but folks outside of the Texas region still consider Houston a two dimensional city.  Energy and Space Exploration.  While both of those are very important to Houston, the growth in the high tech, health care research and delivery, educational research, telecommunications and manufacturing will continue to outpace our baseline industries. 

We see it every day, but those not as familiar to our community do not.  That’s one of the reasons why PKF Texas created the Fast Tech 50 Awards program and brought that to the Houston Business Journal.  We wanted to start the ball rolling on branding and awareness of the city as a source of great success in the tech sector.  We are fully committed to making this sector a success for our city.  One of the areas that the Houston Technology Center, HBJ, and our firm supports is the Rice Business Plan Competition.  Its success and the information the participants receive during the competition has reached around the world.  We had several plans from outside the U.S. this year.  The Rice event has turned out to be so successful that Fortune Small Business decided to drop their own competition and endorse the Rice event.  Also, working with the Greater Houston Partnership, Walter Ulrich, our President of the HTC was able to get Houston’s visibility changed with some national rankings recently with a national publication as well. 

Second, we have to create jobs and fight for talented tech personnel to relocate to our city.  This is no longer a fight for economic survival on a local, or regional basis.  I recently had the opportunity to review some economic strategic planning from another region and they indicated they were fighting for business from communities their size in the domestic U.S.  They couldn’t be further from the truth to be successful.  In my opinion, we are fighting to secure talent to our community locally, from the global community.  I can assure you Houston through organizations like the Greater Houston Partnership, and the HTC see things on a global basis and we want to compete globally for all kinds of business opportunities.  Given our baseline business in Energy, this gives us a leg up on the acceptance of Houston as a global city and not just a city in Texas.  Our cost of living and the baseline for salaries for tech personnel are very favorable to both companies and individuals alike.  And our existing talent pool is just outstanding, some of the success stories we have in the tech sector would rival any region in the US and beyond. 

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I see several trends evolving within the accounting profession.  First is the final stages of paperless automation within the back office and field work.  This started several years ago, but the vendors have finally caught up to the demands of the profession.  That includes paperless filing, document management and practice workflow solutions within the office, paperless audits and tax returns, and paperless activities within the back office. 

Second is the increasing demand of mobile computing.  Now mobile computing goes to the virtual office, but it’s much, much more than that.  It’s the finalization of reaching this version of the “wired” or “fully connected” professional within firms.  Our clients increasingly expect us to be available at a moment’s notice to meet their needs.  Only through Windows Mobile solutions are we going to be fully connected.

Third is good IT governance and practices especially with regard to security management, confidentiality of client data, business continuity and disaster recovery.

And lastly, business intelligencewith the applications and technologies used for gathering, providing access and visibility to, and analyzing data to help business owners and manager make informed business decisions.  Our Dynamics NAV practice is getting additional requests for solutions in this area.

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Over the weekend Microsoft dropped its bid to take over Yahoo!. This is an interesting development in what initially appeared to be an inevitable take-over.

This brings up a few questions:

• Who can compete with Google?
• What does this mean for Microsoft in terms of the next step to compete in Web 2.0?
• Where does Yahoo! go from here? They’ve been playing second fiddle to Google for quite some time.

CNN/Fortune has an interesting article that speculates about the above questions.

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It’s not often you get a chance to hear one of the country’s foremost experts in information technology. Earlier this week we (myself and several colleagues at PKF Texas) were treated to one of the best, “A Conversation with Michael Dell”, founder, Chairman and CEO of Dell – and a native son of Houston.

On April 30^th, Dell was the guest speaker on a panel for the Houston Forum. Also on the panel, Walter Ulrich, CEO of the Houston Technology Center, Leonard Rejcek, President and CEO of Manhattan Construction Co., moderated the session.

Dell took questions from Walter, Leonard, and the audience. 

Some of the most interesting points I took from the presentation include:

• 1 billion people are currently on the internet
• 500,000 new users log on every day
• Use of the internet is expected to double in the next five years creating opportunities for
  • Mobile
  • Online
  • Bandwidth

He also commented on his company, Dell, giving valuable insight into one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs:

• 10 years ago Dell’s revenues were $6 billion and they are currently at $61 billion
• In the past year (before he took over again as CEO) they experienced an annual growth rate of -11% and this year they are currently at a +21% growth rate
• Dell stresses keeping things simple for his people and customers alike
• He encourages conversation with your customers
• Dell (the company) recently launched www.dell.com/earth to address the company’s green initiatives
• Dell’s key target markets are outside the U.S. He refers to them as BRIC +10. BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China. The +10 is several other countries where the technology sector is booming or has the potential to grow exponentially in the next few years.

A few other thoughts I noted about the technology growth:

• China currently has several of the worlds most visited websites
• Due to the fact that the internet does not have borders, social networks, collaboration are pushing content all over the world.

Great stuff, and I was glad I was able to hear him speak. If you get the chance to see one of his presentations, I would highly recommend it.

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It’s finally here. This week I’m heading to San Antonio for the Envision08 conference. As of right now I’m planning on updating you during the conference, sort of a modified version of my Rice Business Plan Competition live blogging. I’m not quite sure when I’ll be able to make updates, so keep checking back.

The panel that I’m on, The Top Ten Accounting Mistakes, is scheduled for Friday at 10 AM April 25, 2008.

This is going to be a great conference. I’m looking forward to the attendee interaction between the sessions and at the scheduled networking events. Also, I’m curious to hear what Guy Kawasaki has to say. I'll let you know.

A big thanks goes to Richard Scruggs, Director and Lenae Huebner, Asst. Executive Director at the CNVE for all their hard work putting this conference together. See you in San Antonio!

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With tax day behind us, we can now begin think about things other than the IRS, bean counters and filing deadlines. As you know I am a big fan of Inc. Magazine. I want to let you know about their newest comprehensive technology website for entrepreneurs called Inc Technology.

A spin off site from Inc.com, it has the latest technology trends affecting your business, expert IT advice and commentary, as well as strategies for deploying and choosing technology products and services.

There are articles and forums for just about every technology topic you can think of. Let me know what you think of the site. Is it useful for your business? Are there topics you would like to see me talk about or record for a PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook?

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I wanted to share the below video clip with you. It is conversation about social media and Envision08 between Mark Nathan of the Houston Technology Center, Richard Scruggs from the CNVE, Karen Love from PKF Texas, and Dayna Marcum from Local Reach, caught on tape during the filming of spots from Envision08. Enjoy!

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(L to R) AMA Houston Tech SIG coordinator Rob Roberts, Michael Berry, Katie Laird and Greg Price after the blogging for business panel on April 2, 2008.

This morning I was one of three panelists at the AMA Houston Technology SIG’s event, “Blog Forward: The Rapid Evolution of Blogging as a Marketing Tool.” A big thank you to Rob Roberts and the AMA for asking me to present, it was a great crowd.

Katie Laird from Schipul and Michael Berry from Clear Channel Houston joined me on the panel. The links to their blogs are below. Katie contributes to six!

• Katie’s blog – www.happykatie.com
• Michael’s blog on the News Radio 740 site

It was interesting to get their perspectives on blogging, as their blogs have a different focus than fromgregshead.com.

To those who attended, thanks for your questions and thoughts. I enjoyed our interaction. Feel free to comment here on the blog, or email me with any questions you may have about fromgregshead.com or blogging in general.

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It’s finally here! The Rice Business Plan Competition kicks off on Thursday. Like last year I’ll be live blogging from the competition. Thirty-six teams from top MBA programs from across the country and globe have been selected to compete.

This year I’m a judge for flight 3. Below are the teams that will compete in my flight:

HeartSounds, Inc. - University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
AutoTB - University of Cambrdige, UK
DiagNano - Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA
GlucoFast  - Lancaster University, UK
IMMUTEL - University of Aarhus, Denmark
Traycer Diagnostic Sys. - Ohio State University

Good luck to all the teams and stay tuned for my thoughts and observations from inside the judging room!

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Envision08 speaker Guy Kawasaki recently interviewed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the MIX08 conference. MIX is an annual event that brings together professionals in the consumer Web space - Web developers, designers, business and digital marketing professionals - to explore new ways to build next-generation Web experiences using Microsoft technologies, and create digital customer connections that drive business results.

The video of the interview and Q&A session is about an hour long, but you can read the transcript if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.

They discuss a wide variety of topics including social networking, the changes coming after Bill Gates fully transitions to working full-time at his foundation and Microsoft’s potential takeover of Yahoo!. It’s really interesting stuff, especially considering Kawasaki’s history with Apple. Ballmer definitely has set the course for moving forward. It’s going to be fun to watch what Microsoft does in the coming years.

On a related side note, I am going to be on a panel at Envision08. I’ll be one of three panelists talking about the top ten accounting mistakes that businesses make. I'm looking forward to it. 

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This week Houston was named the #4 Up-And-Coming Tech City by Forbes Magazine. Here’s what Forbes had to say about Houston:

“Houston hasn't exactly earned a reputation as a city teeming with techies. But that's changing. "Fifteen years ago, we had all the assets, but we weren't really developing them," says Walter Ulrich, chief executive of the Houston Technology Center, the state's largest technology incubator. "So all the leaders of Houston got together and recognized that the city needed to diversify its economy. There's been this tremendous transition."

Houston's strategy: Smash different discoveries together. To wit: Houston's itRobotics, founded in 2002, has developed new cost-cutting robots that inspect a variety of boilers and energy pipelines for structural flaws.

Other Houston start-ups are commercializing technologies originally developed at local research institutions. Nanospectra Biosciences, a local drug delivery company, is working on a nano-scale particle (pioneered at Rice University) that destroys cancerous tumors. The particles are injected in the bloodstream and accumulate inside cancerous tumors. When the tumor is exposed to a laser, the particles absorb the near-infrared light and convert it into thermal energy, destroying the tumor.”

An interesting back story on how the article came together: the reporter, William Pentland, contacted Christina Garza, media relations manager at the Greater Houston Partnership about the story. Christina referred him to Walter Ulrich, president and CEO of the Houston Technology Center [link]. Walter provided the background for the story and as you can see was quoted. It’s great to see the collaboration between the GHP and HTC lead to such a prominent feature. 

One more local connection to note is Rice University. The two companies mentioned, itRobotics and Nanospectra Biosciences were both founded based on innovations at Rice and are licensed through the Rice Office of Technology Transfer.

Kudos to Houston for providing the environment where technology start-ups can flourish. The main reason we created the Fast Tech 50 program was to change the mindset of those outside of Houston about our advancement in tech savvy.

The 2007 Fast Tech 50 companies are responsible for creating almost 3,250 jobs and over $387 million in revenues to the local economy. Houston is about more than just oil and the space program (which are pretty good in their own right!). No one industry dominates the Houston business climate anymore. The city's businesses are as diverse as its people and cultures.

Congratulations to the GHP, HTC and Rice, it’s great to see your efforts in the tech community being recognized on a national level.

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Shortly after I was named the Chairman for the Houston Technology Center Advisory board, I was interviewed by the Houston Business Journal. The article appeared in the February 15^th issue.

During the interview I discussed my thoughts about the future of the HTC which I would also like to share with you.

The change going forward is that the maturity of the organization is coming into play. For the first few years, HTC worked on establishment, credibility and more importantly survivability.

Now we're going beyond that and want to go into the next phase of evolution and that's how to establish a more permanent funding mechanism. It's time to have a more longer term view of what the major initiatives we want to accomplish are and the funding mechanisms we want in place, whether they be donations, investments or contributions.

We're trying to create a process by which a successful client company can financially help the HTC by providing a percentage of ownership in return for the mentoring and counseling provided by the HTC. We've had some preliminary talks and some concepts have been discussed. There's nothing official, but there is general agreement that HTC should try to have some ownership level. More study and discussion is necessary, but we are moving closer.

Houston continues to have a lot of idea generation. We're on top of our game in terms of promotion of new ideas. HTC is very excited about the prospects and what the future will hold in all our fields.

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I had the opportunity to visit with Randy Woelfel, Managing Director of Energy and Maryanne Barker, Associate Director of Development both of the Houston Technology Center and I was very impressed with their report on the upcoming Energy Technology Venture Conference this coming March 6 and 7.  They have several companies presenting the ideas and opportunities that are very exciting.  If you are in the investment space for energy technologies you need to be at this conference. 

The conference will bring together 30 of the most promising emerging energy technology companies with an audience of venture capitalists, private equity, angel and corporate investors and related financial professionals. Energy companies seeking new solutions will have an opportunity to identify technologies of interest and meet the people who developed them. This exciting two-day celebration of innovation offers the best networking and learning opportunities for business, energy and financial professionals. 

John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company will be the keynote speaker. Gary C. Evans, Chairman & CEO of GreenHunter Energy Inc. will present the opening address.

There is also going to be a great VC panel discussing Bringing Technology and Finance Together to Ensure Global Energy Supply. The participants are listed below

• Moderator: Lane Sloan - Director, University of Houston Strategic Energy Alliance - Special Assistant to Provost
• C. Michael Ming - President, Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA)
• Fred Charlton - Managing Director, Simmons Company International
• Cheryl Smith Bryan, Managing Director, Boyden Global Executive Search
• Helge Tveit - Partner and President, Houston Office, Energy Ventures
• Marianne Wu - Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures

If you’re interested in attending this great event, you must register here by Monday, March 3 at 3:00pm. It is $450 per person to attend. If you have any questions, contact Natalie Padilla at (713) 658-1750 or NPadilla@houstontech.org. I hope to see you there!

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Crackberries strike again! Monday’s three hour BlackBerry blackout serves as a reminder to keep our addiction in check. Like last April’s outage Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry, was slow to diagnose and address the issue. As of yesterday afternoon, they were still trying to determine the cause.

This outage continues to solidify my choice to use my Cingular smart phone instead of the Crackberry. I’ve already read about several customers who plan to ditch their Crackberries for smart phones that don’t rely on RIM’s network. Once again, who knows how much this outage cost its customers in business. Two major outages within ten months of each other indicates to me there are problems that need to be addressed. 

Was this second blackout in less than a year enough for you to decide to make the switch? Do you think RIM has addressed their issues properly? Did the outage push you into Crackberry rehab?

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Stephen Nunes, the Controller from Merrick Systems (www.merricksystems.com) and I were recently talking about various technology trends and new items and the capabilities of the Nintendo Wii came up. It really isn’t just a gaming system. Stephen wrote a helpful document describing how to connect a Wii to use it as a multimedia center. With the success of the Wii during the recent holiday season, I thought this might be helpful to those of you who received one. Merrick Systems is a software and technology solutions provider for the upstream market located here in Houston.

If you have a Wii connected to your main television, it can be more than a gaming unit. You can also use it as a multimedia box to browse the internet on your television (go to Youtube to watch videos)  and to stream pictures, videos and music from your PC to  your TV.

Here’s how:

1. if you have a wireless network in your home, start by connecting the Wii to the network
   1. At the main Wii Menu, go into the settings menu and follow the network settings from there. Connecting a Wii is very similar to connecting any other wireless device to your home network.

2. Download the Opera browser for Wii to the unit. Do this by going from the main Wii menu to the Wii Store. You will need to spend $10.00 to buy “Wii Credit” on the site, but again, the menus will guide you through how to do that. Once you have the required credit, you can choose to buy the browser from the Wii store and it will download to your unit and update it’s operating system.

3. At this point, the internet browser will appear as a menu choice in the main Wii menu. You can now use it to browse almost all web sites by typing in the web addresses on the on-screen keyboard using the Wii Controller. You can save frequently visited sites as favorites for one-click retrieval.

4. To stream media from your PC, you now need to go to Orb.com, set up a free account, and download and install their client software to your PC. During that installation process, you point the program to the folders where your media files are. I have all my music, pictures and video stored on an external hard drive so it is separate from my other data. You can then go back to the Wii, an browse to your account on Orb. After signing in, you will see the folder with your music**, pictures etc and you will be able to double click on them to start them up. The flash media player within the Wii Opera browser should then allow you to view pictures and play music** and video.

5. Note that you can even play music from your Itunes libraries, but all media has to be unprotected (non-DRM in the case of music) format to play. Thus music you added to your library from CD’s should play, but music purchased from the Itunes store will not.

6. **Security note - Since I’m paranoid about hackers, viruses etc, I only start the Orb client on my PC when I want to stream multimedia through the Wii. Otherwise, I make sure that the orb client has been exited and is not running on my PC. As part of setup, I choose not to have it automatically start up when windows does.

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This week's guest spotlight is from Walter Ulrich, President and CEO of the Houston Technology Center. 

Houston, Texas, January 7, 2008 – Mark my words, “2008 will be remembered as the inflection point for transforming the Greater Houston Region from the 20^th century leader in oil and gas to a 21^st century globally recognized high technology hub.”

How about “Happy New Year” first???  If you are in this region like me, you had better have gotten over celebrating the New Year by January 2^nd and on your way to making a difference today and every day in 2008.

What is going on here?  Houston faces a great opportunity and a great challenge!

The challenge is that Houston must generate 600,000 new jobs over the next ten years.  If we do nothing, only 450,000 jobs will be created in Houston: The Oil & Gas equivalent of Detroit!

But a lot is being done.  The Greater Houston Partnership is raising $30 million to $40 million to bring in those incremental 150,000 jobs.

So problem solved?  Not so fast!  We attack the symptoms – job counts and wage rates – but that does not solve the underlying problems.

The Opportunity è the right kinds of jobs.  While we need more oil workers, logistics businesses, retailers, manufacturers and call centers, those kinds of jobs alone will not provide long-term, sustainable economic growth.  High technology employment is the flywheel that builds robust, growing economies.  The entrepreneurial spirit, which Houston has in its very DNA, will favor those who seize the opportunity and meet the challenges head on.

This cannot be accomplished using traditional economic development methods.  And competition, nationally and globally, is fierce, so we must create high technology jobs now.  THIS YEAR!

The stakes are HIGH!  Failure is not an option.  Did I say opportunity???  Under these circumstances, this is NOT an opportunity!  It is an outright OBLIGATION to transform this community and we must do it now.  THIS YEAR!

Houston: one of the richest troves of innovation in the world – thousands of entrepreneurs, tens of thousands of researchers and scientists, great institutions, lots of intellectual property and a regional economic base that rivals some of the largest countries in the world… oil and gas capitol… mega medical centers… $4 billion IT economy…  pioneers in Nanotechnology at Rice University… and NASA’s largest R&D facility.

And yet, “we don’t get no respect.”  If you believe the pundits, Houston is seen as one or two dimensional only with the real innovation elsewhere.

So why is that?  We have not demonstrated long-term sustainable high tech results.   We have the economic capacity; we have built the infrastructure in the last ten years.  We have to deliver the goods.  Now.  THIS YEAR!

The Houston Technology Center is ready to lead.  It is the largest non-profit community-based organization in the region focused exclusively on fostering innovation and driving emerging technology success:  Emerging energy and clean energy technologies, bio/life sciences, IT and web 2.0, 3.0 and beyond, nanotechnology and NASA-related aerospace.

Our full time technology development managers work side-by-side with over 70 emerging technology companies helping them to identify gaps, find customers, raise money, grow and prosper and thrive.  We partner with over a dozen other organizations and work closely with major Universities, economic development organizations, municipalities and the State of Texas.

Our objective is simple: Houston will be a globally recognized technology hub on a par with the most highly lauded technology centers of the last decade.

AND WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Go to our website, www.houstontech.org.  Attend the free orientation if you don’t know us.  If you do know us, then join us.  The HTC could not accomplish its mission without the support of the community and we need your help.

If you are a technologist or an entrepreneur, you share with us the challenge, the opportunity and the obligation.  Get engaged, give us your support and actively participate (and financial contributions are always welcome).  Greg, his shiny head and PKF Texas get it è they are actively involved and set a great example.  Make a difference!  Get involved!  RIGHT NOW!

www.HoustonTech.org

_____

About our guest contributor – Walter Ulrich is President and CEO of the Houston Technology Center, Chairman of the Gulf Coast Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization and active in many community organizations.  Appointed by Governor Perry, he recently completed a two year term as one of the founding members of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund Committee.  He has been CEO of several technology companies, a management consultant to major corporations, an expert witness on technology issues, and was responsible for the first commercially successful email service in the 1970’s.  A former Marine and graduate with a bachelors and master degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, he lives with his wife in Pearland.

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The dates for the Rice Alliance Business Plan Competition have been announced! As many of you know I am one of the judges for the competition and have live blogged from the event the past two years. Below is the email I received providing all the details for the 2008 competition. Note the intent to compete deadline is Friday February 1, 2008.

2008 Rice Business Plan Competition  
Thursday – Saturday, April 3-5, 2008
Rice University, McNair Hall, Jones Graduate School of Management – Houston, Texas

The Rice Business Plan Competition is one of the largest and richest intercollegiate new venture competitions in the world.  Thirty-six of the top MBA and Graduate Schools from around the world will compete for over $345,000 in prizes at Rice University in Houston.  The event is judged by over 150 venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders from the technology entrepreneurship community.    

The competition is open to all graduate level teams from any university.  Both U.S. and international teams can apply to compete.  EVERY team that is accepted is guaranteed to win a cash prize.  All applicants will receive a copy of Business Plan Pro - Premier Edition software.

If you know of a graduate team or university that should compete, please encourage them to apply.  ALL university teams that submit an intent to compete will receive a free copy of Business Plan Pro - Premier Edition software from Palo Alto Software.  More information click here.

    - Intent to Compete Deadline:  Friday, February 1, 2008
    - Executive Summary is Friday, February 22, 2008, 5:00 PM (Houston Time)

Competition Prizes -Over $345,000 in total prizes

• $175,00 Grand Prize – including $100,000 equity investment + $20,000 cash + $55,000 in services
• Over $240,000 in total cash prizes, plus over $100,000 in services awarded
• EVERY team accepted into the Rice competition is guaranteed to win at least e cash prize

Special Cash Prize Categories include:

• $20,000 – Dow Sustainability Award – sustainability & clean technology cash award
• Life Sciences Cash Award
• Energy Cash Award
• Information Technology Cash Award
• Intellectual Property Cash Award
• Hispanic Business Plan Cash Award

Other Benefits include:

• Multiple opportunities to receive individual feedback & mentoring
• Largest, most-experienced judging panel
• Over 150 VC’s, early-stage investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders
  • More leaders from the entrepreneurship community than any other competition
• Multiple Presentation Opportunities
  • All teams are guaranteed to have at least four presentation opportunities
• Best facilities and hosting of any competition
  • World-class Jones Graduate School of Management building at Rice
  • Over 100 Rice student volunteers will act as hosts and guides
• Low-cost travel, centrally located
  • Houston is serves as hubs for Continental & Southwest Airlines with 2 major airports
  • Discounted hotel rates & all meals provided for competitors  

Who Is Eligible

• Full- or part-time graduate students: includes MBA, Masters, PhD, and MD candidates from all disciplines
• Teams with 2-5 team members  (at least 1 team member must be a graduate student)
• Ventures must be "for profit" entities seeking outside equity capital
• Teams must be university-affiliated and have endorsement of a faculty member
• Ventures must have no revenues or outside equity capital PRIOR to the start of current academic year

We received 100+ testimonials from Competitors at the 2007 RBPC, including:

“Based on our experience and that of other teams from our school at other competitions, Rice is clearly positioning itself as the premium competition.”

“We will strongly encourage our school to send teams in the future. We had an outstanding experience.”

“It is the most complete and well organized competition I have attended.”

“It was by far the best competition we had been to.”

“It was just a wonderful experience! Very well organized, the materials were professionally done,” 

“The exposure to contacts was AMAZING, the feedback was very valuable, and the facilities are beautiful.”

“One of the highest caliber competitions within the country!”

“Overall organization was superb, best I have experienced.”

“Really an amazing event at all levels. Congratulations!!”

We believe the RBPC provides an unparalleled experience for participants by providing a diverse program over three days, with significant time allotted for feedback and interaction with the judging panel. 

For information about the Competition, sponsorship opportunities, or awards banquet information, please contact Philana Diaz, the Competition Director, at: rbpc@rice.edu or 713-348-3190.
  
Online information: www.alliance.rice.edu/rbpc

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I’ve got several newsy items for you today.

Voting for Houston’s Greatest People’s Choice Award closes on Monday November 26^th. If you haven’t done so visit the website, www.houstonsgreatest.net and vote!  The award ceremony is on November 28^th. I’ll let you know who the People’s Choice winners when we find out.

The blog was mentions in an article on Microsoft’s People Ready website. The article has a lot of great ideas about how professional service firms can use the web to their advantage.

My team and I attended the Microsoft Directions 2007 Conference November 8-11^th. I’ll have news and thoughts for you next week.

The FastTech 50 event was a great success! Thanks to all who attended.

Finally, have a happy Thanksgiving!

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Congratulations to all of the FastTech 50 winners!  Here is the official 2007 FastTech 50 list:

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As we prepare our program for the seventh year of the Fast Tech 50 Awards Luncheon, I again have a chance to reflect and comment on an outstanding group of entrepreneurs and business leaders that make the Houston Metropolitan area one of the best places to live and work in the country. The Class of 2007 will be known as “The Youngsters”. In comparing this year’s group of winners, it’s clear that they represent a much younger and still developing group of early stage companies. They will have an impact on our local and national economy for many years to come, and they will add to the legacy of what makes Houston the top city in the country to start a business. The youth of many of our new emerging companies is evident with the threshold to make the list holding steady at 29% for 2007! The average growth rate for this year’s group is a staggering 149%. You always know that you have arrived on the scene when several “national entrepreneurial magazines” are now mentioning many of our Fast Tech 50 companies as organizations to invest in, or watch. Thanks for the publicity guys, but the Houston Business Journal and our Fast Tech 50 program, already scooped you! We’ve been blowing the horn of these entrepreneurs for over 7 years!

During this past year we had 354 companies express an interest in becoming a member of this exclusive club. The Fast Tech 50 class of 2007 continues Houston’s tradition of technology excellence. And they also bring to the forefront new and different stories of entrepreneurial success. This year’s list of honorees includes; 19 first-time honorees, 15 two-time honorees, 6 three-time honorees, 6 four-time, and 4 five-time honoree. Our five time honorees include: Knowledge Systems, Merrick Systems, Salvage Sale, and Triad Resources. What staying power!

During the past year we saw many successful technology events throughout the city. The Houston Technology Center, the Rice Alliance (including the highly success Rice Business Plan competition), held many forums for the start up community.   The Houston based Gulf Coast Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization (RCIC) is doing very well in its second year. We continue to hear from the State’s oversight group is that the plans submitted from the Houston area are some of the most well received.

Qualifications

Let’s review the nomination and listing process. To qualify for the Fast Tech 50, a company’s headquarters, or a foreign company’s US headquarters must be located in Houston SMSA region. A minimum of 51% of the company’s consolidated net revenues must be involved in the original manufacture, design or development of technology products or delivery of services. A nominee must have minimum net revenues of more than $200,000 in both years. Rankings were determined on the revenue growth percentage from fiscal 2005 to fiscal 2006.

The nominees were asked to submit the following information: nomination form; audited, reviewed or compiled financial statements or tax returns for 2005 and 2006; an overview letter; and background information on the company, its products and/or services. Representatives from PKF Texas validated the information on the nomination form from the information packet. The percentage of revenue growth was computed by comparing net revenues from 2005 to 2006. During the past year we received 354 nominations for the Fast Tech 50.   The organizations that made the top 50 places were then listed. 

Overview of the 2007 Fast Tech 50

Our Fast Tech 50 represents a wide variety of industries. The industries represented by our award winners, and the number of entries by their area are as follows: Medical Devices 3, Software 25, Hardware 1, Technical/Consulting Services 8, eCommerce/Business Portals 8, Technology Products 3, and Communications 2. 

One honoree was started in the 1970s. Six of our honorees were started in the 1980s. Fourteen honorees were started in the 1990s. Finally, twenty nine honorees were started since 2000.   This group of honorees is by far, our youngest group of companies ever. Hang on Houston; we’ve got some growing to do!

This year’s Number 1 ranked Fast Tech 50 honoree is Vuico, LLC. You will find a profile on this company later inside this special section of the Houston Business Journal. They grew a remarkable 267% during the past year! Congratulations to Vui Lee and his team. It’s a great story of entrepreneur collaboration. In addition, three companies started in 2004 made the Fast Tech 50 2007 Top 10. They are: eCardio Diagnostics, Quantum Solutions for Business, and Techcess Group. Talk about fast starts! The single largest revenue contributor from the Fast Tech 50 to our local economy is PreCash at $30.1 million. As we noted earlier, the cutoff this year to make the Fast Tech 50 was approximately 29% year over year growth.  

The local economic impact made by this year’s Fast Tech 50 is phenomenal! When reviewing the entire 50 companies, an impressive overview quickly emerges. These organizations are responsible for creating almost 3,250 jobs and over $387 million in revenues to our local economy. No one industry dominates the Houston business climate anymore. Our businesses are as diverse as our people and our cultures.

Nominations will be accepted for next year’s Fast Tech 50 listing by contacting the Houston Business Journal, PKF Texas, or any of the additional sponsors. Organizations that are nominated will receive additional information and application packets during the spring of 2008. Congratulations to all of our honorees! We look forward to seeing you in next year’s listing.

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The numbers have been crunched, the envelope has been sealed and the final preparations for the FastTech 50 luncheon are being taken care of as you read this!

If you are in the tech community here in Houston, then you better be at the Hilton Americas Hotel downtown on Friday for the 7^th Annual FastTech 50 Awards.  It’s the can’t miss event of November!

This is the seventh year of our participation as the presenting sponsor and it will be the best event yet!  This is the first year we will be awarding one company the Paul Frison Accelerator Award. 

If you don't have a seat you will miss out on the premier event for emerging and tech based companies in Houston. To register visit http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/event/3613 or contact Lee Ann Semmel at lasemmel@bizjournals.com or 713-688-8811.

I look forward to seeing many of our friends at the luncheon.  A huge thanks to our sponsor group the Houston Business Journal, FOX 26, Frost Bank, the Houston Technology Center, Oracle Software, Pierpont Communications, the Rice Alliance, and Winstead.

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Happy Halloween!

My colleague and resident millennial advisor to the blog, Jen Lemanski, asked me to read this article from Advertising Age about an interesting contest from MTV. 

It’s nice to see companies such as MTV supporting and encouraging this entrepreneurial generation. With everyone searching for the next Web 2.0 phenomenon, MTV and Cisco’s Digital Incubator contest puts their money where their mouths are, by awarding start-up capital to the niche websites targeting college students. 

The best thing they did was to examine the business models and unique impressions of each website to determine a winner. Hopefully the winners, Matthew Fargo and Ben Luduc-Mills will be able to translate the money they won into further success.

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As I announced back in August  the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) is coming to Houston. Microsoft has finally announced the dates, July 7-10, 2008.

This is what Microsoft has to say about Houston:

“The fourth-largest city in the United States, Houston has emerged as the Gulf Coast’s cultural capital. A major U.S. hub for international business and trade, Houston boasts industry leadership in energy, information technology, medicine, and even space exploration. The city is hip. Diverse. And offers a world-class art scene and the kind of cuisine foodies crave.”

I whole-heartedly agree with the above. By choosing Houston for such an important conference, Microsoft is demonstrating exactly what Joel Kotkin was talking about in his Opportunity Urbanism report. 

Houston is an opportunity city and it’s great that large corporations are recognizing they can find business success here.

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With all of the exciting things going on in Houston, I haven’t let you know about the article in which we were featured quite prominently. It ran in the Oct. 5^th issue of the Houston Business Journal. The article was about accounting firms and how they are reaching out to the next generation with “hip” marketing. 

Greg Barr, the reporter, mentions the blog as one of the tools we use to speak to the next generation. Looking at our Webtrends, we’ve had quite a few visitors referred from that article. Welcome to fromgregshead.com!

If you haven’t had the chance, take a look at our new career site, www.pkftexas.com/careers. I’ve learned quite a bit about team members who I don’t have the opportunity to work with on a daily basis. 

What are your firms doing to reach out to the next generation? How much are you promoting your firm and city’s culture rather than just the job role?

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Once again the blog has been nominated for Best Corporate Blog for the Bloggers Choice Awards!

We’re currently in 10^th place, but I know we can do better! Here’s what my loyal blog readers need to do:

• Go to www.bloggerschoiceawards.com. 
• Click on ‘Best Corporate Blog’ and look for fromgregshead.com. It will move up as more people vote. 
• Click on the ‘vote’ button – they’ll ask you to create an account for voting purposes because you can only once per blog, per category.

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Quick update for those who were nominated or submitted themselves for the FastTech 50. Yesterday we signed all of the notification letters and we will be mailing them later this week.

In addition to the making the list of 50 and our Enterprise Champion Award winners, we have a new category. This year we are introducing the Paul Frison Accelerator Award. This award will be given to the company who is the youngest, and highest ranked company on the Fast Tech 50 list. Paul has a long history of success and commitment to the emerging market space here in Houston. And he was a part of the initial group of supporters when we created the FastTech 50 program. We are pleased to honor his contributions by creating this award in his name. 

This year’s group of nominees was outstanding and I’m looking forward to the award luncheon on November 16^th at the Hilton Americas. If you are interested in getting a table for that event registration will begin soon. I’ll keep you updated and see you there!

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Exciting news! Houston has been selected at the host city for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in 2008!

The Houston Chronicle alluded to it in an article on August 3^rd and I received confirmation yesterday from our Microsoft Partner Account Manager, that WPC will be here in early July 2008.

This is a huge event, the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau is expecting 50,000 rooms to be booked during the conference. This is a great opportunity for Houston to show off what a great city it is. Looks like we’re moving up in the world!

Stay tuned for updates as they become available!

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Attention Houston Tech companies! We’ve received so much interest in the FastTech 50 this year that we’ve extended the deadline to Wednesday, August 15^th. This means you have two extra weeks to get your nomination in. 

Click here for more nomination details:

http://consult.pkftexas.com/fasttech50/

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As many of you know PKF Texas was a founding sponsor of the FastTech 50. The nomination period for the 2007 FastTech 50 is now open. 

To qualify for the FastTech 50, your company's headquarters must be located in the Houston SMSA ten county area which includes Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, San Jacinto or Waller counties. A minimum of 51% of your consolidated revenue must be involved in the original manufacture, design or development of technical products or services. Your company must also have net revenue of more than $200,000 for both 2005 and 2006. All nominations are subject to review by the FastTech 50 board.

To nominate your company visit http://consult.pkftexas.com/fasttech50/. The deadline for submissions is July 27, 2007.

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So the iPhone is coming out in a couple weeks. Now that we’re closer to the reality of actually owning one, are you going to spend the $500 to be the first to have one?

I’m still not sure that I want to replace my pocket pc and my iPod with one phone. But given how quickly iPods caught on, is this a viable alternative? And will they take over the market as quickly as the iPod did?

If you do get an iPhone, let me know. I’d like to hear how people like it and if it’s worth the money to switch. 

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Check out this article one of my colleagues passed it on to me and I couldn’t help but comment on it.

Apparently, 409 people clicked on a Google Adwords ad that offered to infect their virus-free PCs. 

Really? 409 people?

Turns out it was an experiment by a guy at an IT company in Europe. 

I have to question the 409 people who clicked on the ad. Did they really not read the ad? Apparently not. Luckily nothing happened to their computers, but can you imagine if something had? 

I think this is a lesson to all to make sure that you fully read online ads on if you’re going to click on them. 

How often do you click on Google Adwords ads, or any other ad online for that matter?

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One of our readers alerted us that the blog has been used as part of a spam ripoff.  I have contacted our hosting site, Lexblog, and they are currently working on the problem.

The web address being used in the scam is "fromgreghead.com".  Note the lack of an “s”.

I’ll keep you updated as  the investigation progresses. 

I take this kind of intrusion very seriously and have sought a swift resolution.  Please know that your privacy is of the utmost importance to me and the others who work behind the scenes on the blog.  Here are the links to our privacy policy and disclaimer.  Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

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More news to report. PKF Texas was named to Accounting Technology’s annual VAR 100 list. The list represents the top 100 Value-added Resellers (VAR) in the country. 

We are proud to be included on this year’s VAR 100 list. Our consulting practice continues to grow and we’re heading in a great direction.

Companies that were picked for inclusion in the VAR 100 list were selected based their status on Dec. 31, 2006. Resellers were considered for selection provided that they sold mid-level accounting software packages. PKF Texas is a reseller for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

The annual VAR 100 list appeared in the April issue of Accounting Technology.

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My colleague, Jen Lemanski, in the Practice Growth department, sent me an email this morning about the Texas Public Relations Association (TPRA) awards banquet Saturday night, at which we won a Bronze Best of Texas Award.  Since I am at Convergence, I couldn't attend the banquet.  She and Raissa Evans, the Marketing Manager, attended on my behalf.  Here’s what she had to say:

Greg,
Hope you’re having a good time at Convergence.  San Diego would be great right now!  The awards ceremony went well.  In our category (website) we were up against Half Price Books, Shell Oil, The Woodlands, the City of McKinney and the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.  The order was as follows:

Silver – Half Price Books –  www.deletecensorship.org
Bronze – PKF Texas – www.fromgregshead.com
Bronze – The Woodlands –  www.thewoodlands.com
Merit – Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau – www.visithoustontexas.com
Merit – Shell Oil Company – www.shell.com/us/energizeyourfuture/
Merit – City of McKinney – www.mckinneytexas.org

They don’t award a gold level, so we were the 2nd tier!

Jen

Once again, I would like to say thank you to everyone who reads and comments on the blog, our guest columnists, and everyone who works behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly.  The blog wouldn’t win any of these awards if it wasn’t for all of you, so congratulations! 

I am off to my next session.
 
Before that I am going to meet with Dennis Smith, one of my fellow NAV partners from Dallas.
He has a prospect that its interested in NAV and I am going to answer any questions the prospect has about the product.
 
BTW.....the weather is sunny, 75 and beautiful.  And if I didn't tell you sunny and beautiful.

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Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.

While catching up on some reading over the holidays, Business 2.0’s “15 Surprises Ahead in 2007” piqued my interest. Chris Taylor’s list includes such innovations as India and China’s race to the moon, Big City WiFi (something I’ve discussed in previous posts) and wireless USB “cables”.

The concept of wireless USB is particularly appealing on a practical level. Can you imagine your computer and desk free of cords?

No longer will you have to deal with the rat’s nest of cords connecting your computer to your printer, mouse, keyboard, monitor, etc. The mind reels just thinking about all the extra desk space. And think of all the time saved not having to think about which cord connects where. 

This is definitely something I’m looking forward to this year.

As business people and entrepreneurs, we celebrate and encourage innovation. What have you heard or read about that you’re looking forward to this year? If you could develop something to make your life easier and less cluttered what would it be?

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I received an email the other day from the Houston Technology Center. For a limited time, the HTC is offering special move-in incentives for new tenants.

I’ve written several times about how the HTC is a great location for emerging technology businesses to base their Houston office. They provide everything entrepreneurs need to run a successful business. Click here and here to see my previous posts about everything they have to offer. 

Since they are offering the move-in incentive for a short time, contact Sheila Whanger at 832-476-9284 for more details as soon as possible.  

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One final word on the FastTech 50 event for 2006.

Robert Cresanti, the Under Secretary for Technology at the US Department of Commerce, was the surprise guest speaker. He commented about how impressed he is that Houston has an event the size and scope of the FastTech 50. He also said that Houston and Texas have done a great job in providing the right entrepreneurial environment that allows technology companies to sustain such growth.

One of the great success stories to come from the FastTech 50 winners is the success of Tanox, a three time FastTech 50 winner. Tanox, co-founded by Nancy Chang, was recently acquired by biotech giant Genentech for $919 million. The details of the acquisition can be found in this Houston Chronicle article. The fact that such a large and influential company took notice of the great things going on in the Houston technology community is phenomenal. 

I’m excited to see how the FastTech 50 has evolved and how proud companies are to be included on the list. Network International, a two time FastTech50 winner, quoted me in their recent press release about their inclusion on this year’s list. Click here to see the release. 

Robert Cresanti’s comments struck a chord with me and it’s good to know that Washington is taking notice of our city and the opportunities we offer to companies to be a player on the global technology stage. 

A note of thanks to Brad Burke over at the Rice Alliance for getting the luncheon on the Secretary's schedule.  The Rice Alliance is a sponsor of the FastTech 50 and we appreciate their long time support.

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As we prepare our program for the sixth year of the Fast Tech 50 Awards Luncheon, I again have a chance to reflect and comment on an outstanding group of entrepreneurs and business leaders that make Houston one of the best places to live and work in the country. The maturity of many of our new emerging companies is evident with the threshold to make the list increasing to over 35% for 2006! The average growth rate for this year’s group is a staggering 134%. It seems everywhere you look there are new entrepreneurs emerging on the scene in Houston. Our city has its legacy, and its future, riding on the success of its entrepreneurs. Everywhere you turn all the appropriate parties are on the same page in this critical area. In my opinion, it’s a return to a time when NASA was first starting here in Houston and all parties were working together to get it right. All branches of government as well as the private sector are on the same page, and doing what’s right for our great city.

During this past year we had 341 companies express an interest in becoming a member of this exclusive club. The Fast Tech 50 class of 2006 continues Houston’s tradition of technology excellence. And they also bring to the forefront new and different stories of entrepreneurial success. This year’s list of honorees includes; 25 first-time honorees, 9 two-time honorees, 11 three-time honorees, 4 four-time, and 1 six-time honoree. Our lone six time honoree is: Cardtronics.  

We also had some unique honorees this year, our first group of combination honorees. We have both a father-son and husband-wife combination. Talk about success in your family! Our father-son honorees include: Ron Farmer (father) of US LED Ltd. (a first time honoree) and BJ Farmer (son) of CITOC (a four time honoree). Our husband wife combination includes: Michael Chang of Directron (a two time honoree) and Vicky Change of Prime Systems (a first time honoree).

During the past year we saw many successful technology events throughout the city. The Houston Technology Center, the Rice Alliance (including the highly success Rice Business Plan competition), held many forums for the start up community.   The Houston based Gulf Coast Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization (RCIC) is off and running. Recent feedback from the State’s oversight group is that the plans submitted from the Houston area are some of the most well received.

Qualifications

Let’s review the nomination and listing process. To qualify for the Fast Tech 50, a company’s headquarters, or a foreign company’s US headquarters must be located in Houston SMSA region. A minimum of 51% of the company’s consolidated net revenues must be involved in the original manufacture, design or development of technology products or delivery of services. A nominee must have minimum net revenues of more than $200,000 in both years. Rankings were determined on the revenue growth percentage from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2005.

The nominees were asked to submit the following information: nomination form; audited, reviewed or compiled financial statements or tax returns for 2004 and 2005; an overview letter; and background information on the company, its products and/or services. Representatives from PKF Texas validated the information on the nomination form from the information packet. The percentage of revenue growth was computed by comparing net revenues from 2004 to 2005. During the past year we received 341 nominations for the Fast Tech 50.   The organizations that made the top 50 places were then listed. 

Overview of the 2006 Fast Tech 50

Our Fast Tech 50 represents a wide variety of industries. The industries represented by our award winners, and the number of entries by their area are as follows: Bio/Life Sciences 1, Medical Devices 2, Software 28, Medical IT 2, Hardware 4, Technical/Consulting Services 5, eCommerce/Business Portals 3, and Communications 5. 

Two honorees were started in the 1970s. Four of our honorees were started in the 1980s. Twenty-one honorees were started in the 1990s. Finally, twenty three honorees were started since 2000.   This group of honorees is by far, our youngest group of companies ever. Hang on Houston.

This year’s Number 1 ranked Fast Tech 50 honoree  is Tyrell, Inc. You will find a profile on this company later inside this special section of the