Technologies

Semiconductors
My experience in semiconductors is extensive and broad.  While gaining my BSEE at Case Western University, I designed, manufactured and tested my own semiconductor, and was one of the few non-graduate students to focus on semiconductors.  That was just the beginning, upon graduation I was a design and development engineer for over three years designing custom ASIC for a number of different customers and markets. My technical expertise quickly enabled me to become the go-to engineer for difficult and complex designs. I also helped train and educate more junior engineers. Armed with an MBA, I quickly moved into marketing to leverage my technical experience and my ability to turn technical challenges into marketing opportunities.

ASICs

• 10 years of experience in ASICs, 3 as a design engineer and 7 as a marketing professional
• Well versed on all aspects of ASIC design from processing to place and route
• Created new benchmark for ASIC market
• Launched 3 ASIC products: One family of  standard cells and two gate array product families
• Used and understand key aspects of design automation software for the development of ASIC designs

Network ICs

While a senior consultant at The McKenna Group, drove the technical understanding and marketing positioning for a series of networking ICs for Kawasaki Steel.  These ICs called CAMs (content addressable memories) were designed to greatly increase the performance of routers by increasing the speed and accuracy of memory retrieval.  As part of the consulting team and key semiconductor expert, we interviewed the needs and requirements of the market, provided a penetration and marketing strategy and developed some key technical literature for these devices, including data sheets and product specifications.  This experience helped deepen my understanding of networking technology.

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Wireless
My first tangible experience with the wireless market was with the McKenna Group in the mid 1990’s, where I had to help analyze the upcoming battle between CDMA and TDMA. This challenge gave me my first interest in the wireless market.

However, my direct experience with the wireless market came in the Summer of 2001. While I was in the process of leading the effort to sell ClickCollect, I was asked by one of my investors to help with another one of their investments, Sirenic.  Sirenic is a wireless server provider that enables companies and carriers to provide relevant user information to any wireless networked device.  While Sirenic has a very interesting technology and technically savvy individuals, they had no marketing personnel or experience. 

I was asked to clarify their value proposition and jump start their marketing effort in hopes of releasing their first product in the fall of 2001.  I quickly submersed myself into the technology the opportunity and the market and accomplished the following:

1. Quick and clearly defined their target opportunities and customers (Carriers, wireless integrators and corporations)
2. Personally developed a number of corporate presentations targeted to these target audiences, which uniquely outlined the customers needs and the Sirenic solution in relationship to these needs.
3. With very limited budget, refined their corporate logo and image by defining a consistent look and brand image
4. Initiated the discussion with PR agencies to prepare for the product launch

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Software
You cannot be in the high tech world without having significant exposure to some type of software. As a engineer, marketer and consultant, there are many types of software that I have significant experience (OO development tools, EDA tools, 3D development tools, etc), but I wanted to focus on the software where my experience is differentiating.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is where I have this differentiation.

CRM

CRM means something different to everyone. When I was the Director of Real-time Technologies at The McKenna Group, we started talking about Real-time Technologies about the time CRM was being coined.  In essence, this meant being able to respond to customers requests and information automatically, in real-time, without having human interaction. This is not the CRM discussion that is more slanted toward sales force automation (SFA), customer support applications or contact management, that incorporate much of today’s discussion around CRM. At that time. collaborative filtering was the rage, but it was not the answer.

After reviewing many different technology companies, we came upon Personify which has the ability to apply analytics to website behavior and the promise of proactively responding to such behavior. We started working with Personify when they were a six people in a small office in San Francisco. After joining CKS, I developed a consulting project offering that incorporated Personify and other analysis tools to provide insight into online customer segmentation and behavior in order to guide strategic decisions regarding business direction, site construction and branding development.  This consulting process was very successful in a number of client engagements and led to additional business. I personally developed the relationship between Personify and USWeb/CKS and closed the partnership negotiations.

As part of the USWeb/CKS’ CRM practice, I was the senior team member responsible for the Online Strategy.  The premise of our practice being to develop tools and technologies to help our clients to develop analysis-based marketing initiatives with result-oriented feedback, creating a cycle of analysis, development, measure (see diagram).  We developed and implemented a number of project, both online and offline, that fit this process. I structured developed the online components of these programs and managed a team of 12 professionals. As a group we were chartered with interviewing, analyzing and selecting key software partners to use in our practice.  I became very versed in a number of the technologies and software offerings within the CRM space.

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