Utah Tech Watch

Thoughts on Twitter and Microblogging

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by David Politis |

My Experience with Twitter this Past Saturday (5-10-08) at the Republican State Convention (in Utah)

This past Saturday (5-10-08) found me and 3,500 of my closest friends – ;-) — jammed into the McKay Events Center at Utah Valley State College as participants in the Republican Party’s state convention.

This was my first time to attend such an event, let alone my first participation as a state delegate.

Although the doors opened around 7 a.m., I arrived close to 10, after spending several hours in the morning working on a new business proposal. And then for the next seven hours, I was swept up in the festivities of the Grand Old Party.

Shortly after arriving, I ran into long-time friend and associate, Phil Windley, former Chief Information Officer for the State of Utah. As a delegate for many years, he offered me some good advice and perspective on what to expect throughout the day. He also mentioned he’d enjoyed following my micro-posts on Twitter (known to those of us using the microblogging service as “tweets”).

Filed under: Events, Government News, Politics, Utah Technology Council, Utah Valley State College | No Comments »

2008 Blogging for Business Conference: Early Bird Registration Open!

Posted on April 24th, 2008 by Kbeldin |

Last year we participated in the annual Blogging for Business Conference and it was a great event. This year’s event will be even better.

The theme this year is Engage. [Disclosure: Politis Communications is a sponsor of the conference] Isn’t that what we’re trying to do as marketing professionals? In most cases we want to engage customers, but to do this we need to first engage the media and with the advent of social media this includes many influential bloggers across the Web.

As a special treat, this year’s conference will feature a keynote address from GM’s Director of Social
Media, Christopher Barger. GM recently sent a shockwave through the ad industry by announcing that half of their annual ad budget, $3 Billion, would go toward online advertising.

The conference is designed for marketers, advertisers or public relations practitioners. Blogging can be a very effective tool, so whether you’re an agency, in-house or an executive this conference is the place to be to learn how to effectively Engage the media and your target audiences through blogs.

Filed under: Events, Social Media | No Comments »

Back in the Saddle Once Again with “Utah Tech Watch”

Posted on April 9th, 2008 by David Politis |

I admit it. I was overwhelmed (and a bit surprised) by the sheer number of news releases being published every week by Utah-based technology, biotech, medtech, healthcare and/or nutraceutical firms. (Or such organizations with ties to the Beehive State.)

So . . . although I still want to find a way to have such releases published here at Utah Tech Watch, I’ve come to realize that’s more of a task than I want to handle personally at this time.

Secondly, I realize now that the last week of March took a lot more out of me than I expected (getting ready to take our family vacation), which meant little or no focus for posting/blogging. On top of that, I

broke my toe playing beach volleyball while on vacation,
got a touch of Montezuma’s Revenge while south of the border, and
have since come down with a nasty sinus infection/head cold,

each of which took their toll as well.

And third, I really did try to actually go on vacation, which meant not logging onto the ‘Net every morning and evening. And with a 10-minute exception last Thursday (and the time spent while in the airports), that’s exactly what I did.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I did take my BlackBerry with me.

T-Mobile is my carrier here in the States, and I had pretty decent service most of the time while in Cancun and on the Yucatan Peninsula.

However, at $1.50 per minute per call, I made/took very few calls in Mexico.

Each text message opened cost an additional $0.35, which was closer to reasonable. But sending text messages, even back to the States, incurred no additional charges. Ditto for sending/receiving email messages from my BlackBerry.

So email was my primary means of staying in touch, but even then, I wrote/sent very few while on the road.

However, I had just signed up for Twitter the week before departing for Mexico, so I did have some Tweeting moments.

Regardless, I’ve now gotten through most of my stacked up email messages and all of my voice mail. And I’m back to blogging again, which includes writing about tech issues, events, products, services, people and companies. (I have also started blogging again on The Betty Factor as well.)

Filed under: Admin, The Betty Factor | No Comments »

The Slow, Lingering Death of I.T.

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by David Politis |

“Is IT becoming extinct?” That’s the question posed yesterday by ZDNet blogger, Michael Krigsman, CEO of Asuret.

Krigsman outlines seven reasons why he believes Information Technology departments within organizations are on a permanent decline towards irrelevance and eventual death, including:

IT services have become a commodity.
Social media empowers users at the expense of IT.
Software as a service (SaaS) providers are replacing in-house IT infrastructures.
IT leadership is alienated from senior management.
Corporate leadership doesn’t understand the implications of IT decisions on business strategy.
Volume purchasing arrangements contribute to IT stagnation.
The IT-killing external ecosystem is well funded.

Filed under: I.T. Project Failures, Politis Communications, Social Media, Tech Media Outlets & Blogs, ZDNet | No Comments »

“Tech” News from Utah-based Firms for 3-4-08

Posted on March 5th, 2008 by David Politis |

Listed below are the headlines of the news releases distributed on Tuesday, 3-4-08, via such commercial wire services as Business Wire and PR Newswire by Utah-based technology, life science and/or nutraceutical firms.

= = = = = = = = = =

6 a.m. (EST) Reflect Scientific, Inc. Receives a $1,000,000 Order for Imaging Systems

7:01 a.m. (EST) Morinda Holdings, Inc. Launches Unique Natural Products for Production Agriculture

MorindaMax™ to Enhance the Health and Performance of Animals Worldwide

Filed under: American Academy, Certiport, ForeverGreen, IWI, Infopia, Inovar, Morinda Holdings, Reflect Scientific, SCO Group, SIRE Technologies, Sector 10, inthinc | No Comments »

Utah-based “Tech” News from 3-3-08

Posted on March 5th, 2008 by David Politis |

Listed below are the headlines of the news releases distributed on Monday, 3-3-08, via such commercial wire services as Business Wire and PR Newswire by Utah-based technology, life science and/or nutraceutical firms.

= = = = = = = = = =

6 a.m. (EST) Headwaters Incorporated Comments on Sixth Annual Analyst Day Conference

8 a.m. (EST) NuView Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc. Executes Exclusive License with the University of Southern California

Adenosine F-18 Radiopharmaceutical for Functional Cardiovascular Diagnosis

8:45 a.m. (EST) Sonic Innovations Adds Automatic Features to its Smallest Hearing Aid

ion(TM) 400 offers 24-channel digital signal processing

9:12 a.m. (EST) AtTask, Inc. Announces a Cost-Effective and Easy-to-Use Alternative to Microsoft Project 2007

The web-based solution has new and unique features offering a comfortable (and affordable) working environment for MS Project users while still providing collaboration for project workers and business intelligence for executives.

7:58 p.m. (EST) High School Students Nationwide Will Vote for Zinch.com’s $20,000 Scholarship

Filed under: AtTask, Headwaters, NuView Radiopharmaceuticals, Sonic Innovations, University of Southern California, Zinch | No Comments »

News for 2-29-08 from Utah-based Tech Companies

Posted on March 1st, 2008 by David Politis |

Here are the headlines from the news releases distributed by Utah-based technology companies on Friday, 2-29-08 via a commercial wire service, specifically:

7 a.m. (EST) Todd Brockman Joins Galileo Processing Inc. as President